Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century Chapter III

We know a lot more today about religious cults than we did
twenty years ago. But violent religious suicide cults have made
a big splash over the last twenty years, and we should know
know the difference between true religious faith and these
dangerous cults.

From Waco to 9/11, to Columbine, cultic extremists and alienated
outsiders have killed people and committed suicide for strange
religious and political reasons... sometimes for no understandable
reason at all.

Spiritual Aerobics is contemporary theology in poetic language.
I ask some questions in the third chapter of Spiritual Aerobics.
What if these violent and destructive
religious cults, Like Jonestown or the Branch Davidians,
or Bin Laden had a real and practical and religious
reason to do what they did? What if they
were trying to force the Second Coming... and bring on the
Apocalypse? What if they were trying the end the world?
How will God respond to cults that try to use violence
to force him to do what they want? How can people of true
faith respond to dangerous religious cults today?



SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE
TWENTY FIRST CENTURY III

CULTIC REVELATIONS
WACO to 9/11

Rev. Rod Reinhart


When I was a boy in that Bob Jones Baptist school
Tons of Fundamentalist preachers
Paraded past the microphones in Chapel every day
Scorching the earth with Millennial Revelations
Apocalyptic Visions
And countless warnings about the end of the world

They would tell us that the Anti-Christ was coming
Describing him with their Schofield Bibles
Down to the cut of his clothes
And the cavities in his teeth
Telling us who he was and when he would appear
And we would believe 'em . . .
We knew what was going on in this world

Trouble was . . . he was always a communist
Or a member of "that other" political party
And his identity would change
Like the fashions marching down a New York runway

I was a kid . . . but I knew lots of preachers
Religious entrepreneurs who wanted my money
They had a product to sell and they knew how to sell it

I was a kid .. . but I knew lots of preachers
Religious predators who wanted your soul
They knew how to draw you into their game
And get you under their control
The same way Grandma "got got" by the Big Bad Wolf

And I was real religious then
Still am, as a matter of fact
And I had the call so bad
That my dreams filled with verses and visions
And the sure knowledge that I was something special
and the Spirit of God would guide me on my way

And even though I was just a kid
I had been saved a thousand times, and
I met just about every huckster and hustler
Entrepreneur and predator there was
They couldn’t spare a dime to find the Paradigms of Paradise
But I could smell them coming and I knew I'd better watch out

Then came the late '60s
When the world filled with unimaginable
Pantheons of gurus and cults
Jesus Freaks on the streets
Swamis, Commies, and Buddhists beyond belief

And I saw one friend after another shave their head
Pick up a drum and give their college money to some strange temple
And disappear into a maze of religious razzle-dazzle
Only to end up preaching Revolution on the streets of San Francisco
Or Religion on the streets of New York

I guess I was blessed with this "sixth sense" for predators
When they shook their tambourines and tempted me to cults
I just kept myself in college
Not some Ashram in Tennessee or Tibet
And though I was tempted by a few… for a year or two
I was in seminary by age twenty-two
Fighting my way from Apocalyptic Fundamentalism
And into the arms of the Episcopal Church

My struggle was a gift God used
To give me that jaundiced view
To see how some religions can be cultic or chaotic
Abusive or untrue

And I knew enough to never hold in awe
Politics, business, education or the law
They had hucksters just the same
Hustlers playing games and
I knew I'd better keep my eyes up
And my wallet hid away


But what makes these “end of the world” preachers
Flail their days away anyway?
There are pay-offs in the Apocalypse and we'd better know it
We've seen cultic predators pass on from
Small time hustlers into politics and power
Enticing entire nations to embrace their blasphemy
Dig themselves into visionary ditches
And then pull down the dirt

Didn't Hitler dim a century of lights
With campfire stories of heroic Germans
Rescuing the virgin of their soul
From circumcised dragons who played the violin?

Didn't Stalin envision a perfect world
Where mindless conformity masquerades as liberty
Where everyone is equally impoverished for free
Where glorious revolution leaves them living on their knees?

Didn’t Osama Bin Laden dream a perfect Islamic world
Where virgins in exploding vests chanted songs from the Koran
While murderous martyrs fall from the sky?
We once believed all religions taught charity and love
But religious violence today is All-American as Apple Pie
And Designer suicide suits mean maximum numbers die
Waco to Baghdad… we weep and wonder why

And how many nations claimed they were free… then
Filled quaint and ancient cemeteries with unnamed graves
And butchered scapegoat tribes in the streets?
No glory… no freedom fight.. just millions struggling and poor
Dying for a mad-man's vision of prosperity through war

A billion Hell-bent zealots hold their hands out for your dime
God called out the prophets to warn nations of their doom
A poet is a prophet . . . listen up . . . I need some room

Maniacal messiahs and phony holy ones
Are pawing on America's trees
Marking out their territory
Playing on our religious addictions
Preaching to the nations that they, themselves . .
Are the Voice of God

They proclaim their credentials
Apostolic Revelations
Mystical successions
Mountain-top transfigurations
Or they killed the last guru
They claim prophetic knowledge
Mighty truths and mystic visions
Claiming they know God better
Than Canterbury's Archbishop
Or the Pope, or me, or you

Bin Laden, David Koresh, Charles Manson, Jim Jones
Glenn Beck and Donald Trump
Just to name a few
Prison, poison, flames and bullets
Just the ice-berg coming through

Each obsessed with power
Each controlled by pride
Murdering the masses
With disciple's suicide

These Satanic messianic, spiritual Titanics
Float from Texas to the Baltic
Creating gods in their own image
They want divine and violent dancing bears
Deities so limited they don't know what to do
That is why they need an all-knowing prophet
An omnipotent oracle
Killing children on their altars
A strange and dangerous crew
But Manson's in prison…
Bin Laden is dead and buried at sea
And Jim Jones is dead

And Koresh is dead too . . . deader than Elvis
Politicians and preachers shed crocodile tears
And sell shares of his memory

Koresh is dead
Gun dealers sell tickets to his second coming
Koresh is dead
Writers made careers of manufacturing myths
Twisting his "theology" and selling souvenirs

Koresh is dead
The great wake at Waco wailed for years
And the world sighed in relief
When his Hall of Fame become a Ball of Flame
Koresh learned the lesson all dictators learn
The game isn't over until everyone is dead

Maybe the world is lucky he burned himself up
He had all the makings of a Hitler from the heartland
Or a Stalin in the wings
With the right training
(And there were plenty ready to give it)
He could have become the next TV dictator
Or religion's rising star
He could mouth every hateful and lie
That would get him out of jail and raise his star on high

Koresh was a cancelled check . . .
No better than Bin Laden or Timothy McVeigh …..A child murderer…
The black hole of American religion
A steel-belted bomber from the Bible Belt
He was ready to do to America what he did to his followers
Just a plastered pastor, grabbing for the brass ring
But if he had grabbed it… think what he could have done
He was a Siamese twin of Rasputin and Charles Manson
A Mad-man messiah with that winning smile
Ready to lead you to the cross and nail you to it

He would have been America's nightmare
And enough of us are sleeping to dream it
Remember all the crazed and cultic leaders
Who grabbed political power and used it 'till we burned
Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden
and God only knows what candidates today
Jesus gave up his life for the world
These guys force martyrs to die for them
Until all their disciples have fallen on the knife
Koresh is dead… but who is next?

What are they after… these militant messiahs?
Why do they preach the end times…
Then kill to make them come?

They are plotting the Apocalypse
They are forcing God's hand
They want to end the world
Then be the hero of the final days

They believe their right ritual suicide
Their liturgically correct massacre
Their magical murder and sensational sacrifice
Will force the Second Coming… The Rapture… The Revelation
They will bring on Armageddon
And reap the profits on the side
They believe they can crack open the seven seals
And force the four horsemen come forth
They plan to sound the seven end-time trumpets
So seven angels, like cheap movies
Will throw God's Wrath Upon the Earth
Then . ..When Christ appears, triumphant in the East
When the dead rise up to meet Him in the air
Then THEY . . .these strange and dangerous visionaries
With their jet planes, cool-aid, firebombs and guns
They shall rise first with their money in their fists
Rise up from their own sacrificial ashes
To take their place with Jesus on the throne
And reign with him in glory
As the forerunners, the way showers…
Those whose foolish cruelty made it necessary
For Christ to come again

And it's all lies
When Christ comes back, it will be of his own accord
No dictator-mad-man-mass-media-messiah will call the shots
Not Koresh, or Jones, Bin Laden, or any other TV terrorist religious hustler
None of them will force Jesus, or anyone else, to return

God will not allow some immoral maniac
To pave his personal way to eternal glory
By pinning the tail on the Anti-Christ

We must be oh so careful to not be taken in
By power hungry heretics
They make a mockery of the cross
Pray for religious war
And dig themselves fiery holes
In the bottom of Eternity


When all the flames of Waco burn out
When all the planes of 9/11 have fallen from the sky
When all the flames of Jonestown, or the Tate La Bianca Estate
The subways in Japan or the death-camps of Auschwitz, Bosnia or Rwanda
Have turned to ash and blown upon the wind
When all these horrifying pyres of sacrifice
Are burned out and cold

Then we will see they were all a hollow holocaust
An empty offering, a perverse religious act
As cruel and meaningless as burning the children
On ancient altars of Baal or Moloch

For God never called dictators and terrorists
To offer blood sacrifices for anything
Their murders had no redemptive value
And their ashes will fly on the wind
We will pray for the victims
But revile those who killed

The lies of these cults are finally revealed
Their lies come to light and their souls fall in the flame
We know that mad men want to use
Mass murder or ritual suicide,
Cultic Sacrifice and religious war
To force God's hand to give them what they want
But all they will have is a pile of dead bodies
While the Heavens remain silent

For God is no one's butler or maid
He doesn't take orders and He doesn't do windows
And he doesn't get pushed around
By phony two-bit messiahs or their henchmen

Amid these Paradigms of Paradise…
Why does God reject the suicide cults?
Why does God despise these modern mad messiahs?

Why did Christianity survive
While the ancient mystery religions passed away?
Why did Israel survive
While Babylon and Sumeria passed away?
Why did Christian Orthodoxy survive
While the heresies passed away?
Why did the Church of England survive
While the "reforms" of Bloody Mary and Cromwell passed away?
Why will the Church survive and thrive
While Koresh and the cults pass away?
Why will authentic faith survive
While Bin Laden and the terrorists pass away?

Because God’s Love and God’s Church
Are a big cut above the cults
The Church loves God and cares for people
The cults breed violence and greed

The Church preserves the future
The cults burn the world to the ground
The Church worships God, alone
The cults worship whoever takes control

The Church lets God be God
The cults replace God with their guru
The Church asks God to return in His own time
The cults try to force God to return on their command

The Church knows the real God
The cults have no idea which end is up

Be Oh So Careful and teach your children well
There are powerful, dangerous people out there
Hucksters, hustlers, entrepreneurs and predators
Who want to take your money, chain your soul
And drag you to the flame

Remember that God loves us and wants us to love one another
Hold fast to Christ . . . know Him as your savior and Lord
Hold fast to the Church . . . live within its sacraments and faith
Don't be taken in by those who claim to know God
So much better than you, your bishop, your pastor, or your priest
Test the spirits . . . study the Scriptures
Pray faithfully, but keep your eyes open wide
Know who you are
Be strong in the Lord
Love God
Love your neighbor
And know when to say "NO"